It is the morning after his team's FA Cup victory over Manchester United and
Chelsea's Petr Cech has just spent the past half-hour in the hydro pool at
the club's training ground easing aching joints.

The previous lunchtime, far from seeking it out, the goalkeeper had kept his team from hot water. His save from United's Javier Hernandez was reckoned by many observers to be the best in the competition since Jim Montgomery's in 1973, an extraordinary piece of switchback reaction that defied all known laws of physics. More to the point, it was as crucial as Demba Ba's winning goal in keeping Chelsea's season on track.

"Well, it was a great save," he smiles. "It makes you feel great. The satisfaction that you did your job well, but more that we held to our target of getting through to the semi-final."

Not that he will have much time to savour it, with Chelsea's fixture list currently resembling the timetable at Clapham Junction.

Cech takes part in Chelsea's "It's Blue, what else matters" campaign

"Football goes so fast, we play another game this weekend so you can't think about it for long. But I enjoyed it as a moment. Then it is gone. You move on. Your head goes forward."

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But before he moves on, it is worth recording his memory of a piece of action which may turn out to be as significant as any in this crowded season.

"I was aware that he was there," he says of Hernandez, who was standing no more than a couple of yards away as Danny Welbeck's cross looped over the Chelsea defence. "If you know what's around, you have a chance to react. I knew he was there, so as soon as the ball was going to the far post I knew I had to be quick, I had to be ready for every possibility in the way he headed it. If he headed it back, I had to have my arm ready.

"That's what allowed me to make the save: I had all my energy going one way, but I kept my arm back for the possibility he headed it the other way. I was lucky enough to reach it."

It was the kind of save, he says, he is more likely to pull off these days than when he first came to the club.

"I'm 100 per cent sure I'm better than five years ago," he says. "Experience is everything. But in terms of athletic preparation, I feel better than five years ago. You work on things every day which improve you."

The evidence of his preparation was in that save, the product of many hours of rehearsal.

"Yes, we had practised something like that," he reveals. "When you train you try to replicate situations that might happen in a game. But the most important thing, you must have the coordination to get your body there, then it doesn't really matter what you save it with, your arm, your head, your legs. The goalkeeper has to be agile. You can be technically fantastic but if you are slow, you will miss things."

Hernandez certainly acknowledged Cech's agility. In a moment that would serve as evidence in the defence every time the charge is made that Premier League footballers lack sportsmanship, the striker congratulated the keeper for his effort while wearing a broad grin of astonishment.

"He thought he had scored," says Cech. "When you head the ball like this and you see the keeper going the wrong way, you think you've scored. In the end he didn't. But it was a very nice thing to see his reaction. When even the opponent appreciated that you had done something good that is satisfying. But now, we move on."

And, at Chelsea, moving on is part of the job description. Rarely have games come at such a rush as at the tail end of this season; the interim manager, Rafael Benítez, joked this week that Ashley Cole's injury would mean he was absent for three weeks, which means missing about 20 games. For Cech, likely to feature in every game from now on, the best way not to be overwhelmed is to learn how to switch off mentally.

"You have to learn to live with it and you have to learn fast," he says. "You have to completely free your mind. Actually I think if your mind is fresh and your body is fatigued that is better than the other way round. When you are young you think you will be OK, I can keep going whatever. But then you find you feel tired and tired and tired. So you have to find a way.

"I've been playing at this club so many games every season, I have learnt. I'm the kind of person who likes to relax being active, take a bike ride with the kids, play with them in the garden. But I always know, in the back of my mind, I have a game in two days. I can't play on the trampoline with the kids for three hours because the following day I wouldn't have my legs."

The other thing Cech has learnt to cope with is the internal politics at the club. Far too discreet to be drawn on who is his favourite of the nine managers he has worked under at Stamford Bridge, or who he would like to see installed next, his insights once he had retired would be second to none. But one thing he will reveal is his certainty that the endless movement in the dugout does not affect the players.

"The spirit of the team stays the same," he says. "We never give up. You can be in a difficult situation, but we always find a way out of the trouble. I think it comes down to the dressing room. You have players who understand the importance of the club, of doing things right."

And one of those things is seeing out the season before passing judgment. Perhaps for his own reasons, Benítez was keen to insist this week that Chelsea's season has been a good one. Cech is not yet so sure.

"In my opinion, you cannot say until the end," he says. "Last season looked as if it was going to be disastrous and looked what happened. So you have to play till the last minute, then you can judge. [This season] we have had ups and downs – the Champions League defence was not good – but we are still in contention for two trophies. At the end of the day, if we win both of them and finish fourth, you cannot say it is anything but a good season. But we are far from the end, so anything can happen. It could be very bad."

One thing of which he and Chelsea can be certain, that save makes the possibility of success a lot more likely.

Petr Cech was speaking as part of the new adidas "It's Blue, what else matters" Chelsea FC campaign. For more information visit adidas.com or follow @adidasUK to join the conversation using #allincfc